The mystery of ignorance

Well, Bruce might have been talking about the nature of human experience in the vastness of the universe, but I have to disappoint him: one thing seriously mystifies me right now.

The Telegraph has reported today on a lecture given last night by the excellent Francis Campbell, Britain’s first Roman Catholic Ambassador to the Holy See (the Vatican, that is… not a vast expanse of water). I met him in Rome last September and was very impressed – he’s one of those guys you wish you could talk to on your own for a day: clever, articulate, funny and with a really interesting ‘take’ on the world. He was speaking to members of the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust (which debates politics and Europe) – I was invited, but couldn’t go.

One of the interesting points he made is that politicians often understand religion, but their officials don’t. According to Martin Beckford’s report, he said in an interview following the lecture:

I make this observation in general on what I’ve found in four and a half years in this post and beyond, around politics and religion and civil servants. I’ve often found politicians and ministers have a far better grasp of religion than officials. I think it’s because ministers and politicians are grounded in constituencies, they have that lived experience of religion.

He went on to observe (accurately):

The Soviet Union had many centres for the study of religion but they didn’t understand it. They saw it as some distant species, they didn’t have that lived experience.

Apologies to Martin Beckford for quoting a large chunk of his interview, but Campbell makes a point that is not often heard (and that is unwelcome in many quarters when it is articulated in this way):

One of the things I would do is perhaps to encourage people who are in these departments to be a little bit more forthcoming with their insight into this concept of religion. If you have a colleague who is practicing their faith and you know this person, it’s more difficult to marginalise them or dismiss where they’re coming from.How do you challenge that theory that somehow we’re on some sort of trajectory where we’re going to secularise ourselves out of religion? In actual fact that’s going to create more problems for us, because if the rest of the world is getting more religious and we’re getting less religious how do we have that grammar and conversation?

The more that people are encouraged to step forward a little bit and challenge this notion that we can compartmentalise religion between 9 and 5 and then you can be religious again, it just doesn’t function like that. Politicians and ministers appreciate the role that religion plays in peoples’ lives rather than being something remote that we study.

The significant thing about this is that it is not Campbell’s intention to proselytise or evangelise; rather, he is making a neutral phenomenological claim about the importance of public authorities (which really means ‘people’) understanding the role and purpose of religion in a society – whether they agree with the ‘content’ of that religion or not. A religious world view is as valid as any other, but needs to be understood in its own terms.

Campbell’s point is interesting also because it could be said to apply particularly to the media. In the last census (which, of course is now out of date…) well over 80% of the population of England and Wales claimed some sort of religious faith; in a survey of media professionals (I think, in the BBC) only 22% held a religious world view. And media people often claim that they reflect the world we live in whilst showing astonishing ignorance of the religious experience of people in that world. And there are lots of reasons for that.

The BBC has set up its internal academy for journalists and this includes ongoing ‘education’ about religion, religions and how these are lived out in the world. Yet recently it became clear that outside the BBC and Channel 4 there is no interest among the media giants about religion.

As Chairman of the Sandford St Martin Trust (which met this morning) I have an interest in religious programming on radio, television, print and new media. The challenge is also a fantastic creative opportunity for programme makers to discover the fascination (at lots of levels) of religion in the world and represent that in creative formats that don’t naturally slot into the old-style ‘religious broadcasting’ genre.

It is not good enough to whinge about the decline in religious broadcasting or the ludicrous ignorance among public bodies of religion as a phenomenon that shapes the world and is not going to go away. We have to encourage and stimulate people to be creative in their professional field and create the opportunities for addressing religious themes in ways that will grasp the imagination and command the attention of large audiences.

The bottom line for the media is simple: programmes will never be broadcast because they are ‘religious’: they will be broadcast because they are good programmes.

The bottom line for our public authorities is also simple: to ignore religion because of some assumed ideological embarrassment is both culturally stupid and pragmatically short-sighted.

4 Responses to “The mystery of ignorance”

It is a strange conundrum that Officials do not understand religion, but are responsible for drafting the very legislation which either discriminates against or protects it against such discrimination.

The recent FO debacle over the Visit of Pope Benedict, highlights to me that Secularism is rife throughout the Civil Service, and Religion has been down graded to just another sect in their eyes.

One place in Public Service where Religion is upheld and respected is the Armed Forces, where Chaplains of whatever denomination minister to all – which is pretty much the Church of England take on Ministry.

If Civil Servants were to view their job or role as a Vocation they might in fact give more thought to how and why they do it and be better people as a result. Perhaps the Civil Service need Chaplains in the same way.

Media giants aren’t interesting in religion, they’re interested in selling papers (or programmes). That may not be the way things should be, but it is the way they are.

If I were to say that I don’t buy newspapers which I do not think uphold my religious values, I’d be seen as a bit odd; if I were to suggest that other religious people should behave in this way I would probably be laughed off as totally unrealistic. What would happen if the 80% of people who claim some sort of religious belief also thought about what that means for the way they live their lives?

Yet the values I wish to see upheld in the media — and some of my criteria for actually purchasing a paper — are those of respect, commitment to honesty, constructive information and thoughtful, robust comment. Other people may value these for a number of reasons, but I value them at least in part because of my religious beliefs.

I think there is a bit of a nasty cycle here, in which people who claim to be religious do compartmentalize their lives, keeping their religious views and practices largely private. This then feeds into the idea that religion can be excluded from the public arena. We mistake tolerating religious diversity with disallowing any expression of it for fear it might cause offense; we mistake the humility of knowing we do not have the last word with not saying anything at all.

I can understand why this is difficult.

One of the things that put me off Christianity as a teenager was observing the sham of our family going to church on Sundays and then not having much religious activity for the rest of the week. It was intensely frustrating: I had a strong belief in God’s existence then, but no real idea of what to do about it. The message was quite firmly that religion was what we did at church, that praying or bible study the rest of the time was only for fundamentalist crazies. We did sing grace before meals together and we were very involved in various church activities, but I remember no acknowledgment of God in arguments, in celebrations, in conversation.

When I was actively avoiding Christianity I found outward expressions of Christian faith overwhelming and ubiquitous. The baseline assumption in this country is that Sunday is a day off, that Christmas is important, that people get married in churches. These things may not now be based on Christian belief, but they were once, and they run deep. No other religion automatically gets Bank Holidays that coincide with the most important festivals; no other religion has enough traditional importance that there are trading laws making it harder for shops to stay open on its day off.

Now I live in a multi-faith household. My partner is perhaps best described as a wounded agnostic, with no interest in anything that he perceives as structured, organised religion. My housemate is perhaps more outwardly spiritual, more willing to acknowledge transcendence, but similarly religion-averse. For my part, I am on this strange journey that I can only call a Christian one… and I remember how inundated I felt when Christianity seemed a threat, and I don’t want to do that: I don’t want to be another example of a well-meaning but misguided person who thinks she has all the answers for everyone else, and the answer is to do things just the way she does. But I also remember how much it opened my eyes to get to know a few kind-hearted and strong-minded people who are Christian and who very obviously try to be guided by that in all they say and do, even if it isn’t stated explicitly.

I hope that I strike the right balance; I hope that I am sensitive to the very real hurts of the people with whom I make up this household, while not committing the isolationism that so distressed me as a teen and still bothers me now. I hope that my actions are consistent with my beliefs and values, and that those beliefs and values come across as considered and grounded rather than being given over to the whim of the church and all its human bureaucracy, as hopeful and loving rather than defensive or judgmental.

My occasional experience of American television leads me to question the idea that the media giants do not have an interest in religion.

I occasionally watch Fox and they do not seem to have an issue with presenters references their faith, and once whilst watching TV in America I was amazed and pleased when a chat show host interviewing the singer Glen Campbell suddenly veered off the original line of their interview and they began sharing details of their prayer life in a relaxed and wholly ordinary sort of way. That is unimaginable in the UK.

I do think we need to be mindful of the overwhelming position of the BBC as the major player in UK broadcasting.

Those of us who were involved in 60’s radicalism will remember the approach of Gramsci and many of that generation who now occupy senior posts at the BBC entered with a specific agenda to make the State Broadcaster more progressive. In their eyes downplaying religion was part of that, so we cannot be surprised that so many who have been recruited by that generation have a similar mindset.

It is a difficult nettle to grasp by politicians many of whom would not want to be seen as politically interfering with a supposedly independent State institution, but what does one do when it is plain that for all their rhetoric, the BBC is not actually culturally much like the rest of us – particularly where religion is concerned.